Why did Trotsky in Problem of the Ukraine talk about fictitious independence? Because, in the era of imperialism, no state can be truly independent, even the largest, and the smallest and weakest will always be subordinated to the interests of the global ruling class. Just ask Liz Truss, whose British government found that, despite having “got Brexit done”, not only was Britain still subordinated to the EU, but also to the whims of the global financial markets, as representatives of that ruling class.
The domination, of course, in the age of imperialism, does not come in the form of territorial annexation, which was the case in the age of colonialism, but in the form of this financial control, and, occasionally, the use of covert and paramilitary type operations such as those used by the CIA, to organise coups such as that against Allende, or Mossadegh, or in Kyiv in 2014. It takes the form of the installation of compliant strong men, rather than actual colonisation or annexation. As Trotsky put it, above, “by means of state loans, railway and other concessions, military-diplomatic agreements, etc.” He could have been specifically referring to the role of US imperialism, and its relations to Zelensky's regime, but the same applies to the way China and Russia operate on the global stage.
In order to try to defend their bourgeois-democratic line in relation to defence of the fatherland in Ukraine, the social-imperialists, are forced to cede the arguments of the reactionary bourgeois nationalists who argued for Brexit, on the basis of the myth of the possibility of real national independence, of “taking back control”, when no such thing is possible.
Of course, social-democrats and economic nationalists like McDonell can happily do that, because they have always accepted that nationalistic framework, as the basis of their vision of social transformation, just as with the Communist Party's British Road To Socialism, or the nationalistic Alternative Economic Strategy of the 1970's, and 80's, promoted by Tony Benn and Stuart Holland. But, the reactionary nature of that approach is shown by the precursor of the AES, the Mosely Memorandum, drawn up by then Labour Minister, Oswald Mosely, and supported by the likes of Nye Bevan. It formed the basis of Mosely's economic programme for the New Party and British Union of Fascists.
That economic nationalists can accept this bourgeois-idealist nonsense is one thing, but what is the excuse of those that have been driven into it, as a consequence of their support for the right of a capitalist state to defend itself, who claim to be Marxists and international socialists?!
The USC authors of the article write, in response to Murray,
“Many supporters of Ukraine would undoubtedly respond that their support for the country against unprovoked military invasion, for Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation-state, is unconditional, not dependent on the political outlook of the Ukrainian government of the day, nor on the posturing of Western governments.”
From what has been said above, what is wrong with this response is immediately obvious from a Marxist/international socialist perspective. It confuses opposition to Russia's invasion with support for Zelensky's regime, on the basis of “My Enemy's Enemy Is My Friend”. It amounts to nothing less than the kind of “defence of the fatherland” argument put by social chauvinists prior to WWI. It could just as easily have been argued, and was, by the social-chauvinists that France had a right of self-defence against an unprovoked attack by Germany, in 1914, that it had a right to exist as a sovereign nation state. Indeed, Russia, as a backward, basically agrarian economy that had already seen part of its territory annexed by Japan, and was being occupied in the West, by a mighty, industrialised, imperial Germany, might well have made such an argument. But, in 1914, even most of the Mensheviks held to the line that “The Main Enemy Is At Home”.
In 1917, following the February Revolution, some argued a defencist position, and that was also adopted by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev, until such time that Lenin, returned and put a stop to it. As Trotsky relates, Lenin threatened to split the party rather than submit to such a collapse into social-patriotism. If Marxists could not support a right of defence for a backward Russia, in 1914-1917, and instead argued “The Main Enemy Is At Home”, what justification is there for people who claim to be Marxists/international socialists taking up a position of bourgeois-defencism, defence of the fatherland for an industrialised, developed capitalist economy in Ukraine, and one that has, itself, sent its own military to support NATO imperialism in Iraq and elsewhere?
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